Skills Academy on SAILI

“When you look at the kids sitting in a Matric class, the class does not look half empty. But the numbers show that of the class that started school 12 years ago, only half are currently sitting in a Matric class. Half will have failed school and dropped out of the system before they get to the end of Grade 12.

Take From Dispatch Live

“According to an estimate by the dean of the tax faculty, Stiaan Klue, only two out of 10 matriculants made it into a South African university this year, as low university acceptance rates become an everyday reality.

This is an alarming figure, considering that the country churned out a total of 828 020 matriculants in its 2016 class. If the estimate is true, that means that only 2% will get into a university.

The chief executive officer of the Skills Academy, Jan Badenhorst, backs this up, although his estimates are not quite as dire.

According to Badenhost, only about half of the pupils who enter the schooling system in Grade 1 will get a matric certificate and of those, only 5% are likely to get a university degree.

This is a dangerous situation, Badenhost warned, as there is a direct link between level of education and expected income levels.

He said that unemployment is higher for people who are not in possession of a tertiary qualification. But what other tertiary qualifications are there if you don’t get into a national university?”